JoäcIm

Jo'äcim (Ι᾿ωακίμ), another Graecized form of the Heb. name JOACHIM, applied in the Apocrypha to

1. The son of Josiah, king of Judah (1 Esdr. 1:37, 38, 59).

2. By corruption for JEHOIACHIN, the next king of Judah (1 Esdr. 1:43).

3. A son of Zerubbabel, who returned to Jerusalem after the exile (1 Esdr. 5: 5), apparently a mistake for Zerubbabel himself.

4. "The high priest which was in Jerusalem" (Judith 4:6, 14) in the time of Judith, and who welcomed the heroine after the death of Holofernes, in company with "the ancients of the children of Israel" (ἡ γερουσία τῶν μὶῶν Ι᾿σραήλ, 15:8 sq.). The name occurs with the various reading Eliakim, but it is impossible to identify him with any historical character. No such name occurs in the lists of high priests in 1 Chronicles 6 (compare Josephus, Ant. 10, 8, 6); and it is a mere arbitrary conjecture to suppose that Eliakim, mentioned in 2Ki 18:18, was afterwards raised to that dignity. Still less can be said for the identification of Joacim with Hilkiah (2Ki 22:4; Josephus Ε᾿λιακίας, Ant. 10, 4, 2; Sept. Χελκίας). The name itself is appropriate to the position which the high priest occupies in the story of Judith ("The Lord hath set up"), and the person must be regarded as a necessary part of the fiction. SEE JUDITH.

5. The husband of Susanna (Sus. 1 sq). The name seems to have been chosen, as in the former case, with a reference to its meaning; and it was probably for the same reason that the husband of Anna, the mother of the Virgin, is called Joacim in early legends (Protev. Jac. 1, etc.). SEE SUSANNA.